PewDiePie Reveals He's "Stepping Back" After Years Of "Working Crazy Hours" On YouTube

6 July 2017, 10:38

By Josh Lee

"I sort of lost touch with just the direct connection... with the audience."

PewDiePie has revealed plans to scale back his YouTube channel after "working crazy hours and just stressing out over it" for the past few years.

Over the past seven years, PewDiePie's channel has grown into the most-watched in YouTube history, with over 10 billion views. His success has spawned both books and mobile games, and allowed him to travel all over the world.

But PewDiePie admits in his latest video that none of these additional ventures were making him very happy.

Following up from a recent video in which he admitted he was "tired of trying" so hard, Pewds explains that he's realised he now wants to "take it a little bit more chill."

"Looking back at how I was treating YouTube a couple months ago," he explains. "It's very different from now. I had an office, I had a couple employees, I was running a business on the side, I was doing all these projects, but I found that these were all things that I thought I needed... to be 'professional'. But I think in reality the more I tried to be more of a 'professional', the more I sort of lost touch with just the direct connection... with the audience."

"It sort of became layers upon myself and I don't know why I thought that was a good idea."

He goes on to say: "And personally these [extra ventures] weren't even things I liked... I don't like to travel... I don't like to do other projects that I don't really care about."

Pewds' channel will be only be guided by what he really wants to do from now on.

"This week... I've just been focussing on what I personally find really interesting or fun to do," he explains.

"It's sort of like a new direction of the channel. The fact that you guys enjoy it, it really, really, really means a lot 'cause, because just because I feel like I want to try less hard, it doesn't mean I don't care as much anymore. I really do still care a lot about you bros."

So what can PiewDiePie fans expect from this new direction?

Felix explains that his content will come about more organically: "I've really been enjoying the player unknown videos, you guys seem to as well. I've really been enjoying the fan interaction videos... I've really been enjoying just sharing and reacting to stuff that I personally find really interesting."

He explains that after scaling back his production for the past two weeks, he's been "much happier as a person." Although he doesn't "know what's next," he says that he's going to "keep doing what I feel like doing."

"I feel like I'm back, in a way," he adds.

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